


if a fallen angel is by your side

by dancingwiththewind (highfaenyx)



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Gen, character study of a kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 10:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12862338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highfaenyx/pseuds/dancingwiththewind
Summary: the only one she deemed trustworthy in the world of men was the Devil - now and always.





	if a fallen angel is by your side

 

A girl of noble heritage, dressing as a boy, saving the world and defying evil - we all heard stories like that, didn’t we?

There were warriors, queens, heroes amongst them; some peeled off their masks in the end, some lived with them as long as they could; and all of them got a happy ending.

And then there was Shiori.

So let us talk of Shiori Genpo - of a girl who sold her soul to a demon, girl who spied and killed and made decisions so hard that they are rattling in her bones still.

 

Shiori had a happy childhood. Thank your God for at least that, people told her; you had decent parents and a place you had called home.

She does not listen. Not anymore, and the reason is as simple as it is not.

Shiori doesn’t believe in God.

She believes, though, in Devil, for he stands by her side, always, steady and still; his face is a beautiful mask, and she had seen many women (and occasionally men) falling for that face and posture, for the darkness that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

She would have done the same, she thinks sometimes, if she didn’t know better; if she didn’t know who hid behind that mask, what an entity wore it as if it was his own.

If she didn’t wear something like that herself.

 

***

 

«Everybody falls, sooner or later, my dear mistress», Sebastian said. «I’ve seen dozens, hundreds sin and fall barely minutes after they swore the opposite. You, humans, indeed put up an interesting show»

Shiori’s mouth corners twitched in a shadow of a sarcastic smile. «We do, don’t we. That’s why you’re here, right, Sebastian? To see the spectacle - ‘The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast’», she quoted and looked at her butler, expecting to see amusement on his face. He liked Oscar Wilde, this devil, loved his wit and irony, so Shiori knew most of his quotes by heart.

But his mask was as serious as she has ever seen it; and he didn’t reply, so Shiori turned her attention back to the papers on the desk.

She was working for quite a while - sorting out the letters and writing back, managing the estate papers - the administrative tasks took more and more of her time as the years passed. Shiori stretched her back muscles against the chair and thought of hiring an assistant - not the first time the thought crossed her mind.

But the paperwork was too important, too personal, she tried to convince herself, she doesn’t want anyone to mess it up; to make mistakes and send envelopes to a wrong person.

Although in the back of her mind Shiori always knew the reason was different.

To take on an assistant meant to trust him with the papers, and the only man (well, she can call him a man exactly because she knows he is not) she trusted was now mere steps behind her back, polishing the china, brewing and pouring the tea in the cup. Well, Shiori could only laugh at herself.

 

For the only one she deemed trustworthy in the world of men was the Devil - now and always.

 

***

 

Shiori was already in the bed when she felt an urge to end the conversation they started.

«Sebastian,» she called. «Can I ask you a question?»

He turned around and looked at her, apparently amused. «Anything for you, mistress,» he replied with a half-smile on his lips.

«Tell me, Sebastian, when will I fall?» she asked quietly, not sure if that was a right question to ask at all.

Sebastian looked at her for a long time, amusement gone from the face.

«Why would you ask this?» he finally said, a shadow over his posture.

«Because everyone falls eventually,» she repeated his words from before. «And I want to know how I will»,she added, somehow encouraged by his uneasiness.

His eyes were the same crimson shade, and not a single muscle flinched on his face, but Shiori swore she heard his mask shatter - like it was made of fragile glass, like it wasn’t refined and turned to steel by centuries.

And it was that moment she understood.

Understood his silence, his mocking, his distance, his mask, hardening with each mortal summoning him; I could have known better, she thought. She, of all people, had to know better; the same cover hiding her grim features.

«You believed in each one of them,» she slowly said. «You’ve believed, but they all failed, didn’t they? They all fell».

«Like you,» she added, not sure if she should say it at all, but the words slipped off her tongue still.

Sebastian’s face cringed as if she put a sword straight through his chest with her last words; it was the first time Shiori saw him… vulnerable? Not exactly; she doubted he understood vulnerability the same way humans did.

But it was as close as it could ever get.

He turned away from her, but then swung back, suddenly, abruptly, and his gaze was nothing Shiori had ever seen. She felt… not afraid; she doubted that she could be truly afraid of anything after all she’s been through. Unsettled - yes, she felt unsettled by the intensity of his gaze, by the infinite wells of darkness in his eyes.

But not afraid, never.

So she looked in his eyes of impossible shade of crimson, and thought, _tell me, Sebastian._

_Tell me stories you have never told anyone. Tell me stories of betrayal and demise, of deception and downfall, of treachery and greed, and I will take it all._

_I will take it all,_ Shiori thought. _For you, my ally - enemy - friend, I would take even more._

 

She would take it all, take _him_ all, and give back no pity or regret; for she herself never wished for pity.

Pity - like faith, like hope, like compassion - was not for them.

 _No heaven for the fallen angel and his pet,_ she thought with dark satisfaction.

Sometimes hell is the only option.

 

«One can always fall further, Shiori,» Sebastian’s voice, neither hollow nor high-pitched, cut the silence between them.

«There is no well, no cave, no hole in the ground - just an infinite fall.»

«I know,» Shiori replied, suddenly angered by his belief in her naivety. «Sebastian, I am very well aware of that, don’t you think I am exactly the person who would know that, over all people in the world?»

She jumped out of her bed and walked towards her butler.

«Me, betrayed so many times by those who deemed to be fair and kind?» she said to his face, and saw his features darken.

«I do not believe in people, Sebastian. Not anymore. Never anymore,» Shiori whispered.

«And I am a human. A human with an eye of a devil, yes, but a human still, and I will fall. Though I’ll try not to,» she smiled bitterly. «But I do not believe in my virtue.»

 _I believe in you, though,_ she wanted to shout to his face.

«So I want to know how,» she said - because she truly wanted to.

Because even though she was, perhaps, afraid, she was Shiori Genpo, a girl who sold her soul to a demon, and fear was not something that girl paid attention to.

Silence lied between her and Sebastian for quite a time; Shiori felt centuries have flown by until he spoke again - finally.

«Very well,» Sebastian said. «Your wish is my order, my lord. First, you are going to kill and murder.»

«That I knew already.»

«Deceive and lie.»

«Used to that.»

«You are going to grow old, and every wrinkle on your face will reflect the lives of people you ruined.»

«The lives of people who deserved it.»

«And then you die.»

«An unexpected end, I must admit,» Shiori’s lips cringed in a sarcastic smile. «But fitting, too.»

«And then what?» she muttered. «Go with you? Suffer until the end of eternity? How do I fall, Sebastian? Do I fall forever, until the end of time?»

«No.»

«No?» she thought she misheard, and looked at his face only to find an unreadable expression.

«You are a murderer and a liar, Shiori Genpo. Perhaps even worse, and I made you that way.»

«Do you regret it?» she interrupted, looking straight into his eyes.

«No,» he answered. «Never.»

«Because though you are many things, Shiori, many terrible, beautiful things, you will never stab in the back. In the front - yes, you always stab in the front, declare the wars in the open, shout your name so your enemies would know it - but never in the back. Never cowardly. Never concealed by the shadow.»

In the way he said it she found a flicker of proud - and, more unexpectedly, affection, affection she did not expect to find.

And she realized that one day, she might be able to tear his mask off, throw it on the ground, shatter it to pieces - to uncover the snow white wings underneath.

 

***

 

If you are beside a devil, you become one, too. Sooner or later, now or after years passed, but the truth is inevitable: the hell awaits for you, and you are destined to burn for all eternity.

You fall. That is the outline, the definite outcome, the conclusion fitting for you.

And yet - yet you might also become something entirely else.

Somebody else.

Somebody who stills lies, kills, deceives - and sees the white wings behind the shoulders of an enemy, ally, _friend_ \- who sees yours in return.

 

May we all become angels when we fall.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Quite an angsty and serious take on Shiori and Sebastian in this one. Maybe a bit out of character, but that is how I see them - so different, yet so alike in their sorrows.


End file.
